Classification

With both of our new jobs off the farm, my impending surgery and classification all in the same week; I wasn't sure how things were going to go.

Classification happens for us every 7 months. Before we classify we clip, wash and primp our cows. On classification day, we get up very early (or stay all night) to do finishing touches. Even though the cows were washed, tails are done separately. As you can imagine, the cows continue to produce manure which has to be cleaned before the classifier gets there.

Due to my new schedule, I was not able to get pictures of the cows getting clipped. I do, however, want to thank Anthony Fischer (Fischer Heights Dairy), Jim Neuser, Eric Haupt and Luke Lindsmeyer. These guys came in and clipped all the cows for us.

I did make it to the barn for the first part of washing. Each cow is rinsed with warm water, then we add a whitening soap, and a final rinse.

Yes, that is a pressure washer, that our good friend Jason Miller of Millercrest is using. We are very careful about how much pressure is used as well as how long the spray is allowed on each cow.

A HUGE Thank You to Jason for all his time and effort.

Again, I was so busy during all this that I didn't get any pictures of us doing tails. For their tails we get a bucket with warm soapy water and hold it up to them while soaking the tail. Then we wash away all the manure, rinse and comb them out. Imagine how many times we have to change the water in the pails!

Finally, the classifier arrives! This is important to us and our herd because it gives us an idea of how our cows are doing against other registered holsteins that are the same age. Our goal is to improve our herds BAA each time we score. This is not an easy goal to acheive. A "BAA" is Breeding Age Average. Each cow is looked at individually and scored based on her age, height, leg confirmation, udder capacity, udder placement, teat placement, and so on. There are 17 traits for the classifier to look at; broken into 5 scorecard breakdowns. If you look closely, she is holding a hand-held computer for her to enter the "breakdowns" into. The paper she is holding below the computer is the individual cow's registration paper. The registration paper will be stamped with the new score and date that the cow was scored.

As she scores each cow, she explains to us what she views as the cows strength and weakeness. The score is based on a 0 to 100 scale. In our herd we have 2 cows at 92; 2 at 91; and 3 at 90. I stopped there as these are our excellent scored cows. The breakdowns for these scores are just as important as the overall score.

Having a herd of young cows will make your herds BAA a bit lower than someone with an older herd of cows. Young cows will typically start out with a lower score as they don't have the maturity that the older cows have.

There are many facets to being classified. There are some exceptions to this, but, each cow starts classification with their first lactation. Usually they are between the age of 2 and 3 years old. The score they receive each time they are scored can go up OR down, based on how the individual cow has matured. At the time the cow becomes 5 years old, her score becomes permanent. This means her score can no longer go down, she can, however, earn more points IF she continues to improve with age.

Each classifier has their own views, but are screened regularly by the Holstein Association to ensure that they are all as uniform in their assesment of cows as possible. Each time we have classified (since Todd and I have taken over the farm), we have had a different classifier. Classifier's are sent by the Holstein Association and we do not get to choose the person we get. This ensures that each herd is viewed by quality individuals that have a wide range of experience, but that don't see the same cows every time. Again, this helps to acheive the Holstein Association's goal of uniformity.

All in all we had a good day (January 19th). We won't know for a while what our new BAA is, but we were very excited to be listed, for the second year in a row, in Holstein World's list of top 200 herds in the USA for our BAA.

When One Door Opens...The Final Story

We are truly starting 2010 with a BANG! My husband is starting a new job on the 4th AND so am I!

I am very worried as I will still be responsible for the farm, the house, the kids, the new job and my husband is sickly most of the time. Feels like a lot of things going on, but I am certainly going to try!

With the farm, we have had a guy working part-time for us for the last 2 years; he has always wanted more hours. We don't take an income from the farm, I don't get paid for my time there. My theory was that if I worked off the farm and paid someone a little less than what I was getting paid, I would be farther ahead. We will see if this works.

My problem is letting go, I am a bit of a control freak and it is difficult to not be there for each milking and trust that everything will be as good then as it is now.

When we first started milking my SCC (somatic cell count) was usually below 100 (this is very good for most farms), then we had some equipment issues that took me too long to diagnose and caused our SCC to average 180. This caused me a lot of stress as I believe that keeping control of the SCC means my cows are comfortable and I am producing a high quality milk. Now our SCC is averaging in the high 90's again and I just don't want to lose that.

Regaining control of the SCC is like trying to lose weight. It is soooo easy to go up and soooo hard to bring it back down.

Enough of my fears, I just wanted to put out the "DOOR IS FINALLY OPEN!!!!!" post. We are excited and I will let you know later how we are at juggling all the new things.

County Fair 2009

This may be a bit late, but we are proud of our kids and how we did at Manitowoc County Fair.

My (middle) daughter is learning a lot in the beef project and this year joined a 4-H group to compliment her FFA group.

This year she took a heifer and a steer. The red one is her heifer, she took Reserve Champion Market Heifer and her steer (the black one) took second in his class.

We are VERY Proud of you Midget!

Our youngest daughter showed in the "kiddie showmanship" class for the second year.

We also had three cows in the "Culver's Manitowoc County Futurity". The problem is that I am usually holding the manure bucket so I didn't get any shots. Sorry, I know pictures exist, I just don't have them. Hope I have better luck getting them next year. :)

Government Money?!?

Hmmmm, as a dairy farmer I am loathe to accept help from the government. Many reasons for this, just take a look at the "Price Stabilization" proposal. What a mess, anyway...

A new program was just rolled out. Dairy Farm Management Team. In this program, there is room for 50 farmers in Wisconsin to enroll. If accepted you would be able to spend up to $2000.00 in grant money to learn to manage your farm better. There is a 10% fee the owner has to pay towards the expenses incurred by this project.

We, Cava-Lanes Holsteins, were extremely blessed to be selected as one of the 50 farms.

What does this mean for us? Well, for us it means we get to have a group of people that are normally involved in our farm, come together, and discuss (very candidly) our farms' strengths, weakness and how we can better strengthen our positives and create fewer vulnerabilities.

As a beginning farmer, this is extremely valuable to me. I have so much to learn and so little time to learn it.

We are extremely lucky to be in Manitowoc County, our extension agent is the best! We have only had our pre-meeting and first meeting so far, however, many things were discovered and I can't wait to see how this ends. We only get 3 meetings on the government, then the rest is up to us.


A Great Big THANK YOU to all who are involved in helping us make Cava-Lanes Holsteins a better busines!

When One Door Closes...Part 2

This is my update as I have not written in the last six months. I truly thought with my husband being laid-off that I would have more time, not less.

Well that has not been the case. I would like to start by THANKING all of you who sent me messages and I am sorry I was unable to respond.

Since my last post "When One Door Closes", my husband has been hospitalized twice (I seriously thought we were going to lose him this last time), my daughter had to have an outpatient procedure and I had my own procedure done.

If all that is not enough, my husband has still not found a job. I have started to apply off the farm, but don't have the earning potential he does.

On the bright side, my sister-in-law got married. She is now a part of Gildale Holsteins!


We are very proud of her and happy for both of them!

Thank you again to all who have kept us in their thoughts and prayers! I hope to send another post soon!

Just in case, have a Merry Chritsmas and a Happy New Year from Cava-Lanes Holsteins!

When One Door Closes...

My mom always said, when one door closes a window opens. Yesterday was a strange day of happenings...

At 3:00 a.m. as I am leaving for the barn, my 6 year old comes to me to tell me she can't sleep. I explain that 3:00 a.m. is no time to be up for little girls. She then explains to me that "sometimes little kids have bad dreams"... I start to say "bad dreams", she cuts in "I know, are not real". So I tuck her in to bed with her dog Kenai and some cartoons, then head off to the barn.

I start milking with a million things on my mind. The compressor is not working right (can't cool my milk fast enough); bills; 5 different places to go before chores in the afternoon and how many things I need to pick up at those places; I am taking Tuesday (today) off and need to explain all the things that are different from usual to the guy milking for me; wondering if my little one made it back to sleep...etc.

As the morning helper is coming down the middle aisle I stop him to remind him that the cow in the pen is treated and how to care for her. He looks at me and says..."if she is treated why are you milking her in the line?" I scream for him to cut the power to the milkers and run to grab the unit off the cow. You see...treated means she as been given antibiotics and gets milked into a special bucket that we dump her milk from. Not a good start to the day...milk price is so low that the bills continue to stack up while I keep getting notices of "Thank you for paying on you bill, but we still need you to pay more!"

I called my milk representative and the milk hauler. Mind you it is just after 4:30 in the morning. Oh well, can't have the hauler pick up the milk without it being tested for drugs. If I had contaminated the milk haulers truck...I would be responsible for ALL the milk in the semi.

I feel horrible at this point, but keep on going. I call my husband at 5:00 to get him up for his day and let him know what happened. My husband works off the farm as a manager and is supposed to be gone for the next 3 days doing inventory for his field reps.

He is supportive and I feel worse. Keep on going I tell myself. As I continue I decide I can't go on without heading to the house for a bathroom break...no potty in the barn. I head home and guess who greets me? Yep, my 6 year old. Now she not only can't sleep, but she is hungry. I explain that I have to get back to work and have her dad give her some cereal. I once again head out to the barn.

My milk representative (Dairy Farmers of America: DFA) shows up, again another supportive person and I feel that much worse! She tells me she will know if I need to dump my 3000+ pounds of milk or not in about 10 minutes. I have to tell you that is one long ten minutes! She comes in and lets me know my tank is not "hot". Hallelujah! I feel GREAT now! I finish chores and head home.

Just after I get home my husband comes home for a few items he needed to pick up. His first inventories are local so it is no big deal. I find my daughters are both fast asleep and I decided to take a quick nap. After I get up, my 6 year old comes out. Great timing, the day is getting better...or so I think.

My 16 year old daughter gets up, my mom calls and says she is coming over to help me and I explain that I have to leave...5 places to go with about 15 things to pick up. My mom comes to help me with laundry and dishes (without her I think we would go nude). Just as I hang up with my mom, my husband walks in.

I say, Hi! I didn't expect to see you again. He says "I'm done". I say..."done, done with what?" He replies with his job. The president of his company is waiting outside to take his company car, cell phone and laptop. It turns out due to the economy, he is being laid off.

Now what!?! I know I mentioned large bills and low income for the farm earlier, but now no income for the personal stuff? Wow!

Over the weekend we had borrowed a baler from a friend...it promptly broke down while my husband was using it. We are told that the part is probably going to be very expensive. Since that happened I made sure to call our friends and let them know why they would not be able to call my husband and give them an alternate phone number to reach him.

My friend says to me what are you going to do now? I say...When God closes one door he opens a window. Her reply...Where's the window?

Actually I laugh at this point because I don't know where the window is. I know that no matter what happens...if we lose the farm, horses, cows, house, whatever...we will still have each other.

Have You Ever Said This...?

Have you ever said...No More Animals In The House!?

I must have said this time and time again...so what happens? I start looking for a small dog for my mom. I don't particularly care for small dogs. They seem to be more difficult to train and keep on track (just my opinion).

No problem finding a dog for my mom right! Well, there was this fenced area in the yard with 3 puppies...I asked what was up with them and the owner said; those puppies were from her friend who thought she could breed and sell them. It turns out she is not a good breeder and didn't have the puppies advertised or sold. The puppies were then dropped off with her and she was trying to sell two of them, but the third one was larger than the standard for the breed. Hmmm, which one do you think I was holding? Yep, the one that was too large. Of course I had to ask what she was doing with him! Her response was IF she could find the right home for him, she would just give him up.

She is what I would call the ideal breeder...all the bitches were living in the house and the studs had plenty of room in custom built kennels that were clean. All the puppies were whelped in the house and cared for in the house with separate pens for outdoor play. Her requirements for people are that the don't get to go home with a puppy on the first visit and you don't have to call before you show up. I like that you can see they keep the kennels in pristine condition at all times. If you have to have an appointment, they probably cleaned just before you got there. This particular breeder also showed that she was responsible by taking in the puppies that her friend had bred. Her friend had purchased one of the breeders females and bred it to one of her studs. Thus the resulting litter that ended up with this breeder.

Any way, as I held this young pup I wondered how he would fare with my Koda. Knowing my retriever had been missing Snickers (he passed about a year ago), I thought maybe since Koda is still young he might like someone else to play with. I checked with the breeder to see how she felt about living on a farm...the Humane Society frowns on me. She said it would be fine if she could speak with my vet. I gave her my vet clinic and she was excited as it is the same clinic as hers.

Time to get on with this story...I took Kenai home. For those of you without children...Koda and Kenai are the main characters of "Brother Bear". By the way, mom did not get a dog.

I should mention...Kenai is a King Charles Cavalier (most people think he is some sort of Cocker Spaniel).

Nothing against the Humane Society; I understand that they need to be careful about who they let adopt from them, but not all farm owners keep their animals outside.

Kenai and Koda spend 95% of their lives in the house...winter is too cold and summer is too hot, they like the temperature controlled house AND sleeping in bed with us.

That means we have 2 dogs and 2 cats in the house full time and whatever stray cats show up in the barn get to stay and get fed.

I had been looking for a home for my indoor cats for a while...no one wants to help me clean the litter box, the hair is out of control and Kenai loves to torture them...which means that Koda has learned from the young one to play "chase the kitty". My daughter's boyfriend's mother (what a mouthful) was looking for a smaller pet for her youngest child. Teach him responsibility (supervised of course) and give him something to cuddle of his own. She loved the fact that the cats were used to staying indoors, were "taken care of" and trained. Tada! They had a new home.

Now, down to the two dogs, right? Nope! I seemed to forget that every spring/summer there are many babies that seem to need us.

If you look very closely, there is a towel with a tiny kitten head sticking out.

This poor kitty's leg looked like Swiss cheese. It finally let us pick it up about a week after I noticed it was injured. We have 2 barns...the milking barn and the horse barn. The horse barn has all very friendly cats and the milking barn has all feral cats. This kitten learned to be scared of humans from its mother. They day we caught him the vet happened to be on the property. While examining the kitten my daughter asked the vet what the "white" thing was. The vet grabbed a tweezers and pulled out a long white worm. Poor kitty! Needless to say we had a new "pet" for the house.

Sadly, the kitten only made it with us for 3 days.

We are sorry he didn't make it, but I am certain we will have other visitors from time to time. I guess I should never say "never". So the house has too many hairballs and never seems clean, I guess it is best to count my blessings and be happy we have the ability to help those in need.

Firemans Picnic and Parade

Reedsville, Wisconsin - Fireman's Parade June 28,2009

Every year the Reedsville firemen put on a fundraiser - Picnic and Parade. This year my 16 year old daughter was supposed to be in the parade with her 4-H group (Taus Livewires). It turns out the parade was the same day her dad had tickets to the Brewer's game. So she was unable to attend.

We volunteered our newly renovated tractor to pull the float for the group and placed my youngest child on the float in place of her sister.

The tractor is special to us because it belonged to Todd's (my husband) Grandfather. We had to have it overhauled and then painted it. We think it looks Great!

Here is Bryanna (my youngest) on the tractor...

We had a good time at the picnic too. There was food, drinks, games, and a petting zoo complete with pony rides!

We had loads of fun and hope that our fire department made enough money to keep them going another year!